the tempest.

The bitter winds of an angry spring, the sleet and wet snow of a belated
winter, the floating blocks of ice crushing against the side of the boat,
the black water swishing over man and boy, the harsh, inclement world
near and far. . . . The passage made at last to the nets; the brave
Wingo steadying the canoe--a skilful hand sufficing where the strength of
a Samson would not have availed; the nets half full, and the breaking cry
of joy from the lips of the waif-a cry that pierced the storm and brought
back an answering cry from the crowd of Indians on the far shore. . .
The quarter-hour of danger in the tossing canoe; the nets too heavy to be
dragged, and fastened to the thwarts instead; the canoe going shoreward
jerkily, a cork on the waves with an anchor behind; heavier seas and
winds roaring down on them as they slowly near the shore; and at last, in
one awful moment, the canoe upset, and the man and the boy in the water.
. . . Then both clinging to the upturned canoe as it is driven nearer
and nearer shore.... The boy washed off once, twice, and the man with
his arm round clinging-clinging, as the shrieking storm answers to the
calling of the Athabascas on the shore, and drives craft and fish and man
and boy down upon the banks; no savage bold enough to plunge in to their
rescue. . . . At last a rope thrown, a drowning man's wrists wound
round it, his teeth set in it--and now, at last, a man and a heathen boy,
both insensible, being carried to the mikonaree's but and laid upon two
beds, one on either side of the small room, as the red sun goes slowly
down. . . . The two still bodies on bearskins in the hut, and a
hundred superstitious Indians flying from the face of death. . . .
The two alone in the light of the flickering fire; the many gone to feast
on fish, the price of lives.

But the price was not yet paid, for the man waked from insensibility--